‘The biggest way to succeed is to have a knowledge advantage’

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Gold the most preferred investment

: advantage of it. It’s not easy to manage global businesses.

Do we have the capacity? I don’t know. How we speak and how we conduct brainstorming sessions are very important. Sometimes, Indian CEOs pretend they know everything.

So, what do we do? If a company in the pharma space subscribes to our model, we sit down with the company and assess their areas of interest. Let’s say there are 15 buckets of analysis we can do: interesting companies that are not making money, active pharma ingredient prices, changes in the therapeutic market demand and regulatory framework, we will provide this information to them periodically.

What are the typical knowledge gaps you see in Indian companies, across the spectrum?

Knowledge about competition is very weak. There is a feeling that I know my product is good, I’ll take it to Germany. But it’s done without understanding who are the competitors, how they’re fighting, what are the quality standards, etc. The second area is understanding of the regulatory environment. They understand when they get into trouble. But in regulation you’ve got to be pro-active, not reactive.

The third area is convergence. In a world of convergence, you have to have a good idea of all the surrounding possibilities that may impact your area of business, as opposed to when they wake up late. For instance, if suddenly they discover that nanotechnology is coming to textiles…oh, we have to understand nanotech. Nanotech has been in textiles for ten years! If I am a top-grade textile manufacturer, I should know. These are critical areas.

Are there specific sectors where knowledge gaps are pronounced?